


The Porcupine's Dilemma

by pimpam



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-16 16:07:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9279269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pimpam/pseuds/pimpam
Summary: A 5+1 fic in which the upkeep of Marek's mohawk may or may not serve as a metaphor for intimacy, romantic or otherwise.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what happened, but as someone with a partially shaved I am fascinated by how often Marek must get his head touched up to keep it looking that precise. This fic was meant to be ridiculous and maybe a little bit funny, and instead ended up a character study with vaguely shippy overtones. Oh well. More Napoli fic, that's the important thing here.
> 
> Thanks to @gutilicious for beta-ing bits and pieces, and entertaining my ranting.

The first time he asks someone, it’s because Martina is out of town. They facetime briefly that morning and she laughs and tells him he looks “shaggy”. He goes into the master bathroom and stares absently at the clipper kit with its numbered attachments for a few minutes, even hooks it up and watches it buzz on the counter, before giving up and calling Pepe. It’s a matchday, he doesn’t want to look “shaggy”. Some guys have routines with their shin guards, or lucky underwear… Marek has his mohawk which wears like battle armor, or the brightly colored markings on some deep sea nightmare fish. In other words, it’s weirdly, _sentimentally_ important to him. He feels less prepared without it. (He has no intention of explaining any of that to Pepe.)

The Spaniard is at his door an hour later with some leftovers. (“Yolanda insisted since you’re reliving your bachelor days for a while and probably not eating right,” he says.) They shuffle through the house, Marek not willing to let himself be embarrassed by the request. Pepe doesn’t seem to take it one way or another. He moves, broad and imposing and yet oddly comforting, through Marek’s oversized house. The light’s better in the kitchen, so they set up there with one of the dining room chairs. In a few minutes, Marek is sitting pretty with a spare bedsheet wrapped around himself in a futile attempt to avoid clippings. 

Pepe hums while he works, low, cheerful, but barely audible over the buzzing of the machine.

“Hey-- What would you do if I wrote my initials on one side?”

Marek has to resist the urge to pull back, or move his head. The shaver is just behind his ear and that could end poorly.

“I’d wait until after the match, then strangle you in the shower with a pair of dirty socks. One in your mouth so no one can hear you scream.” He replies, firm and just shy of yelling above the noise of the machine.

“That’s dark, boss.” Pepe keeps working, unperturbed, probably having expected something more or less to that end. He hovers over Marek, close and strangely fraternal. When he’s done, he dusts off Marek’s shoulders and they work together to sweep up the miniscule pile of dark clippings and get them in the bin. In two minutes, apart from the ornate dining room chair, it’s as if the little makeshift barbershop had never been in the kitchen at all.

“Why after the match?” Pepe asks later, when they’re sitting in the living room talking companionably about nothing over Yolanda’s leftovers. 

“Well, I can’t have a team without a keeper,” Marek states before taking a sip of his bitter coffee. “And the club could use the social media hype from some bullshit like that on camera. Then I’d kill you.”

He grins, broad and toothy, and Pepe looks at him a little bit sideways.

“Yeah, okay. You can get my name tattooed instead.”

Marek tosses a pillow at his head.

-

He hadn’t meant to ask Dries. He’d meant to ask Pepe again. But whatsapp is confusing when he’s drunk and maybe, just maybe, Marek has fat fingers. So, when Dries appears at his door, he’s not upset, really, just surprised. Apprehension must read on his face, though, because Dries smiles-- Dries is always smiling-- and pushes past him into the house. 

“Don’t be embarrassed, Marek. This is gonna be fun,” he says. Marek shrugs his shoulders and follows him, still feeling a little hungover and wondering vaguely how that’s going to play with the vibration of the electric clipper. The set-up is roughly the same as it was before, and Dries catches on quick. He shrugs off his jacket, rolls up his sleeves, and gestures to Marek to sit down.

He does, and wraps the same sheet around his shoulders and chest again. Dries fiddles with the machine, flicking it on and off again experimentally, and eyeing all of the various attachments splayed out on the kitchen table. When Marek’s settled, Dries moves behind him carding surprisingly rough fingers through the new growth before holding the stripe down the center of his head to one side. 

“What, no foreplay?” Marek jokes. He doesn’t have to be able to see Dries’s face to know that he’s giving him a look. 

“Seriously, Marek, _relax_ ,” he chides, and sets to work. He’s faster than Pepe, but no less thorough. He doesn’t hum, but it’s not exactly awkward either. Dries’ hands are warm and press pleasantly on his scalp as he switches sections and goes back over areas to make sure he’s gotten them. “I’m gonna hold your ear down,” Dries says, and Marek supposes he intones some sort of assent. Either way, Dries calmly and carefully shaves behind his ears one after the other and pretty soon it’s over. 

They clean up, and Dries demands an espresso for his efforts. That night during the match, Dries scores a brace and he runs and jumps on Marek. Marek’s hands fly to Dries’s back to support him, and Dries’s hands find their way to Marek’s scalp still warm and unexpectedly rough. They’re both yelling incoherent praises at each other and grinning from ear to ear. He cuffs Dries affectionately as they separate and fall back into their positions.

\---

Callejón is a matter of convenience. He’d packed the clipper kit expecting Pepe to have time, but the goalkeeper has mysteriously vanished, probably out being a good husband and picking up a souvenir for his wife or kids somewhere. Marek thinks of asking Dries again, but the Belgian has been roped into doing press for the better part of the day and honestly, if Marek can avoid anything to do with that side of the hotel, he will and gladly. 

He’s laying on his bed, lamenting to José who is fiddling with his phone about it when the Spaniard volunteers casually. Before Marek can really think better of it, they’re in the bathroom, and his shirt is off. There’s clippings on the floor and on his chest and he feels a bit like an asshole because, even though it’s a negligible amount of hair, he’s done this enough to know the little shavings are insidious and that there’s no way either of them will be able to clean it up before they have to leave for the stadium. 

It’s efficient, and clearly José has some experience with an electric clipper, outside of a standard shave. As they finish up, he tells Marek about an ill-fated Spain concentration in which Sergio Ramos had accosted several of them with a clipper set. 

“It devolved into a fucking teenage girl’s sleepover party.” José tells him wryly, angular face contorting in such a way that Marek can’t tell if he’s nostalgic for the heydays of _la Roja_ , or grimly proud at having survived the trauma. 

He showers off the itchy clippings and rejoins José in the main room when he’s done.

They don’t mention any of it later, and there’s no new tension or closeness between them. It’s not like it is with Dries, who teases him about his astrological sign and particularities regarding his “mane”, or Pepe who every so often cuffs him just so, or suggests a ridiculously intricate fade he should try sometime. It’s all the same to Marek. He likes José but they’re friendly colleagues, not exactly friends, and that’s fine. When they pack up to leave, Marek finds hair in his shoe. He frowns as he picks it out but thinks somehow that it’s deserved.

-

Lorenzo turns him down flat out, tells him he’s got a guy in Chiaia to Posillipo he can recommend. It all sounds a little too stylish to Marek, and besides, he’s gotten kind of fond of fixing himself up at home. It’s less posh, more punk rock, makes him feel less like an out of touch rich kid payed to kick a ball around and look cool. It’s an illusion, he knows, all self-perception. But the best lies are the ones people tell themselves, and everyone’s got them, so Marek figures it doesn’t properly matter.

Either way, he can blame Lorenzo for bringing him back to Dries. Dries with his warm, confusingly rough hands, and cheerful precision. Dries, who almost reminds him of Martina in a way he can’t quite explain, even to himself. Dries, who is always smiling, and laughs at him when Marek clearly looks uncomfortable. 

“There’s something offputting about having a buzzing handful of blades just behind my ear,” he calls over the noise of the machine, and Dries pantomimes dropping the clippers just within Marek’s peripheral vision. He yelps, jumps slightly and grins, embarrassed. Dries just grins at him, that elvish upturn to his nose teasing Marek silently by its mere existence as part of Dries’ face. 

The cut is as clean and efficient as the first time, and the pressure of Dries’ hands on his scalp is just as nice. They finish, clean up, and again, he demands his payment in espresso. Marek tells him he’ll have a heart attack by 30, and he laughs, dimples making themselves visible. Marek’s out anyway, so they end up at a fashionable coffee shop in the neighborhood for the rest of the afternoon.

They drink their coffee and chat idly. Dries laughs at his jokes, even when Marek’s cynical sense of humor gets the better of him. It’s pleasant. Marek likes Dries’ company, he finds, even if they’re rather different. It’s not the worst realization in the world, but it’s not the best either. It’s… Something Marek’s not sure if he wants to spend a whole lot of time trying to describe. 

Late that night after the match, when Martina gets in from her trip, they talk it over. He doesn’t know what to say, really. Doesn’t know how to properly address what he’s feeling. She laughs at him, soft and tired, and tells him he’s always been shit at letting people in. This is probably that, plus a little of something else, some other anxiety. Marek feels better as he slips off to sleep, lulled by the dulcet sounds of her breathing and the warmth of her soft hand cradling his scalp. If she’s not worried, he’s determined not to be worried, too.

-

Pipita is a mistake. Not at first, but eventually. Pipita’s all too easy to let in, becomes a part of Marek’s routine all too quickly. It happens fast and while Marek likes direct and decisive, he loathes _fast_ when he really considers it. 

It happens in an anonymous hotel room, not unlike with Callejón. But somewhere in Florence, vaguely, if Marek’s memory is anything to rely upon, anyway, which is maybe a little dubious. Pipita is tall and broad like Pepe, but with his handsome Roman nose instead of Pepe’s utterly brotherly manner. He’s caring, and… The only word Marek can think of is _princely_ , and that pisses him off in a way he doesn’t quite understand.

He thinks later that Martina is right and that he’s got a weird aversion to letting people in, that Pipita somehow slips past his defenses just a little too easily. It’s simultaneously charming and infuriating, mostly disarming, and sort of unpleasant. Different from how it is with Dries, where things are a little more tentative. He and Pipita _click_ in that unquantifiable way, is what it is, and he’s not used to it. 

He invites Pipita for lunch, they eat, and then Pipita shaves his head laughing the entire time, simple as that. He has nice hands, broad like Pepe’s but rough like Dries’. As he works, he idly tells Marek stories about Argentina, about Madrid, about his friends wherever he’s been. Marek closes his eyes as he listens, imagining exotic locations and scenery that is not a generic hotel bathroom. Just before he finishes, Pipita circles in front of where Marek’s sitting, reaches out to hold Marek’s head still. Marek can’t tell whether or not he’s comfortable with that, but Pipita holds him still, looking past Marek’s eyes to the top of his head, checking his handy work.

“That looks even,” he says softly manipulating Marek’s head from side to side just to be sure. Marek’s sure he’s not quite okay with that, but doesn’t have it in him to object. Pipita’s hands are firm and both confining and comforting, and then they’re gone. Marek gets up, brushes himself off and shoes Pipita out so he can shower. Later on, they’re chatting about nothing, staving off anxiety and boredom before they have to start staving off aggression and impulses towards excessive competition. He turns to Pipita in a moment of weird affection and says, without as much conviction as he might have liked, “Thanks for… You know,” and nods vaguely toward the bathroom.

The Argentine smiles in that soft way he has and replies, “Any time, Marek.” Simple as that.

They win that night. Pipita puts them ahead early with a beautiful goal, the kind of obnoxiously effortless display that makes people wax poetic about the art of the beautiful game. He grabs Marek roughly around the waist and they slam into one another, high on the expectation of victory and endorphins.

Weeks later back in Napoli, Pipita and Dries come with him to get tattooed, and then they sit together on a flight somewhere and take stupid pictures for social media. And then Gonzalo moves to Turin for 90 million euros and a feckless play at glory, and Marek decides to ignore his texts for a while.

-

Dries texts him in the second week of the season. It’s a few hours after practice and Marek is torn between napping, and merely laying slothfully with a book on his living room sofa. He glares at the phone for interrupting his afternoon of lethargy, but reads the message because it’s Dries and he both wants to read it and feels like he should. Dries is asking to come over. Says he wants a favor. Marek doesn’t have a good reason to say no, so he says yes.

Someone’s buzzing his door twenty-five or thirty minutes later, and when it swings open, there’s Dries smiling meekly at him. He presses his way, not formally invited, into Marek’s house, and doesn’t stop till he’s standing somewhat uncomfortably in the kitchen. He eyes the ultra modern kitchen table with what Marek can only describe as a carefully blank expression. He palms the smooth-finished surface and then looks back at Marek, the elfish upturn of his nose seeming a mismatch for the sobriety of his expression.

“Can you give me a haircut?” He asks carefully, after a moment of avoiding direct eye contact. It’s a pity, too, Dries has such nice eyes. Rich brown, like the espresso he always demands. Marek’s distracted for a moment by them and lets the question hang in the air just a little bit too long.

This isn’t how he imagined spending his afternoon, exactly but he doesn’t have a reason to turn Dries down, so he doesn’t. “Uh, yeah.” The reply is stilted. 

Marek sets up an old moka pot on the stove, and leaves Dries to supervise it while he runs upstairs for the clipper set and spare bedsheet which hasn’t been used on a bed in a year now and probably never will be again. In another half hour, they’re both sipping too-sweet espresso and talking over the various attachments to the machine, most of which Marek has never really looked at before.

There’s one for the left and right ears, of course. Another that goes up to four centimeters away from the scalp. Both are basically irrelevant to Marek’s life, but will theoretically work well for Dries. Marek begs off trimming the top most section of his hair, citing his lack of proper scissors, and they set to it.

It’s not his first time actually using the set himself, but it is his first time inflicting it upon someone else. Marek’s struck by how easily Dries had chatted with him about nothing in both of their previous encounters. Meanwhile, he’s busy trying to make sure he doesn’t take too much off the side or back of Dries’ head. Dries still chats, over the buzzing, doesn’t seem at all bothered by Marek moving close behind him. He laughs about something Kat’s said before being fully awake, and José tripping over himself and into Lorenzo earlier during drills. It’s utterly normal and companionable, if a little bit much. Marek tries not to let it distract him while he works.

“I uh, need to get behind your ears,” he says, informing Dries while he switches to one of the angled pieces. It attaches with a harsh snap. Dries seems to stop himself from nodding along with Marek’s movements.

“Yeah, sure,” he says, and then goes back to chattering about Lorenzo and Pepe, or something. Marek’s just about done with his left ear when he realizes that this is how Dries shows that he’s nervous. He’s seen it before, of course, before a big match. But that nervousness is different. It’s competitive and Marek knows from personal experience that it leaves a sharp-taste on the tongue, makes someone jumpy and not _chatty_. This is an idle anxiety, the kind born from perceived vulnerability and not necessarily a direct threat or a challenge. 

He’s been there, too. In this case, literally. Turn about, he supposes, is fair play. 

So he lets Dries ramble about nothing and tries to be polite while keeping him halfway tuned out. He _hum_ ’s and _hah_ ’s appropriately, chuckles every so often, and keeps working. Soon enough, they’re done, and he’s dusting off Dries’ shoulders before holding up one of Martina’s hand mirrors that he’s more or less appropriated at this point. Dries smiles, dimples out, admires his own reflection. He takes a selfie with Marek blurry in the background unplugging the clippers. Marek vaguely wonders if he’ll post it somewhere, wonders about what Pepe might say, about Gonzalo, before deciding he doesn’t really care either way.

“Not bad at all. Thanks, Cap.”

“Coffee?” He asks Dries as he pulls the sheet from around his shoulders. 

“We should really just get you one of those cape-things.” He says which is confusing and utterly non sequitur to Marek. 

“Huh?”

Dries smiles back at him, espresso-colored eyes bright. “The barber shop capes. It could be a late birthday gift. Find you a fun one with skulls or a tribal pattern or some shit.” 

“Oh yeah, sure.” Marek says, scratching at his chin absently. “Christmas is coming.”

Dries laughs and soon they’re both moving around the kitchen, him sweeping blond fluff into a neat pile, and Marek fiddling with the moka pot again. He prepares his own cup this time with the intention of keeping it less syrupy, but finds that he misses the sweetness. It’s not how he takes his coffee usually, but he misses it nevertheless. He still doesn’t add more sugar or do anything to fix it. 

Instead, they sit companionably at Marek’s ultra modern kitchen table and chat about nothing. Dries is more comfortable now and the chatting is because he’s comfortable and not uncomfortable. And they’re weirdly closer, Marek thinks. Dries still doesn’t know how to make his coffee, but they’re closer.

When the afternoon is dragging and the sun is beginning to set, the mountains silhouetted around the city like a postcard, Dries starts making moves to leave. They’re slow and reluctant because neither of them really wants this strange companionship to end but they both know it should because they’re adults with responsibilities, or something, and they don’t get to waste an afternoon anymore with no consequences. Dries picks himself up, shrugs on his jacket, and grabs his hat. They’re in Marek’s foyer, headed for the door. Dries is almost gone, escaped into the golden evening, out to his ridiculously expensive car and the dying Mediterranean sunlight. 

Before he does, though, he grabs Marek and pulls him into a hug. It’s uninhibited, not the ironic and detached hug with a slap on the back that teammates give each other before and after matches when emotions and adrenaline is running high. It’s intimate. Dries literally pulls Marek into himself. And then, just when Marek thinks it can’t get any closer, Dries steps up onto his toes to kiss Marek lightly on the mouth. It’s not a good kiss exactly, and there’s nothing titillating about it. It’s just intimate. They’re just close.

And then Dries steps back and the moment is gone. Marek feels himself physically ruffling, feels his personal space reestablishing itself, distinct from Dries’ personal space. Feels the hairs on the back of his neck sticking up like the quills on a porcupine who doesn’t feel threatened, exactly, but is wary all the same. 

“See you tomorrow, Marek.” Dries turns and walks out to his car. Marek watches him carefully from the doorway, thinking that he should probably move but not really sure what will happen next. Dries smiles and waves at him before his car pulls away.


End file.
